The Impact of Digital Technologies on Learning and Behaviour

Impact

Professor Jean Underwood is an established expert on the impact of digital technologies on behaviour in schools generally and on learning in particular. Professor Underwood and her team's research has impacted on policy and practice by:

investigating the impact of digital technologies on user behaviours (with a focus on learners) to provide policymakers with robust evidence of the effective use of technology

acting as a change agent within a key government-funded organisation, the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta)

developing tools to capture the complexity of organisations at various stages of technology innovation

contributing to the development of a self-assessment tool to improve professional training and practice

contributing to national guidelines on the use and abuse of technology.

Research background

Professor Underwood has increased our understanding of technology acceptance, how technology enhances cognition and language, group communication and interaction, and how it facilitates misdemeanours.

Capturing the impact of technology

Becta commissioned Underwood to provide robust evidence of how technology can be used to improve outcomes for learners and the educational system as a whole.

Underwood developed and tested maturity models to capture the impact of structural and individual learner factors on performance as measured by national standard scores.

A unique longitudinal study of 24 institutions, 700 staff and 6,000 students provided a holistic understanding of the impact of technology-rich environments on learner outcomes. From this work, Underwood developed the concepts of eMaturity and institutional maturity. These concepts, alongside learner investment in the learning process, produced a simple but powerful predictive model: opportunity (eMaturity, institutional maturity) + learner investment = effective learning.

The maturity model provided the first direct and quantifiable evidence of the technology dip, the initial decline in performance experienced when technological innovation is introduced into a work setting. Schools self-assessed this dip and identified what they needed to do to ameliorate the problem. As a result, schools selected from poorly performing areas were performing above the national average only four years later.

The model was adopted by Becta and developed into the Self-Review Framework for schools to self-assess their progress and effectiveness.

Academic dishonesty

It has been argued that the use of digital technology makes academic dishonesty easier. Underwood’s initial research in this area examined how groups work. She established factors that facilitate or impede effective group work with technology and showed how technology changed behaviours, supporting collaborative problem solving but also academic malpractice. Underwood then examined the prevalence, risk factors and characteristics of malpractice.